


above myself i see: who is this woman that shields me?

by falterth



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gaara-centric, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Poetic Language, theme of familial love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 20:27:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14143902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falterth/pseuds/falterth
Summary: Gaara lies awake at night afterward. Lies awake and thinks about gigantic fingers made of sand, of the sun blotted out by a golden hand. Lies there, on his hard bed with the hat on his nightstand, and he remembers that no matter what, his mother loves him.





	above myself i see: who is this woman that shields me?

above myself i see:

 

who is this woman that shields me?

 

there are tears sprinting down my sadness

 

and they sting like the desert sand

 

“your mother loved you”

 

_x_

 

His father stands before him, skin cracking and hands caked with gold dust.

Shukaku growls in his head and tells him not to trust in people that live no more.

(He does not think about the empty space in his chest where the _real_ Shukaku should be. He breathes faster and deeper until he is calm again and he can conjure up the voice of his companion and long-time friend.)

(Naruto had fixed his seal four years ago.) 

(Gaara does not cry often, so he is not very good at it—but what he excels in is thinking. So he thinks back to when he cried after it had stopped. After the raucous barking in his head had quieted down into a burbling laugh.)

He is right there and he is alive and well except his skin is a little—well—crumbly, Gaara argues.

He is dead, Shukaku tells him. Dead and that is just a memory.

Gaara wants to hit Shukaku, to lash him with sand and tell him that he is _WRONG WRONG WRONG,_ but he cannot because he knows that the chakra-beast inside of him is right and he is wrong and he is wrong and why is he always wrong? 

Something comes to get him. Shukaku (fake Shukaku fake Shukaku fake Shukaku) roars in outrage and before he, before _anyone_ can move, there is shade and there is a whisper of chakra in his ears. It is heartbreaking in its similarity and Gaara very nearly calls out for his uncle. 

Yashamaru, Yashamaru, Yashamaru.

(how I had loved you)

Something says it to Gaara. Something takes away the kanji on his forehead and puts it into a sentence, makes it more than a painful brand of regret and bloodlust. Something makes love _mean_ something and then. _Then._

 

_x_

 

your

 

mother

 

_loved_

 

you

 

_x_

 

His tongue feels burnt. There is something in the sky above him and he sees a shape behind him. 

The crown of a queen. The hair like rough, coarse silk. Sand-silk. The swell of a woman’s chest behind him, close enough to touch but so far away that he does not dare to reach—he cannot see, but he can _sense_. Her titanic head reaching down, her painful, abrasive lips coming to give him a kiss on the forehead.

His eyes are glued shut and he cannot open them no matter how hard he tries. He knows that he is not lying because he tries and he tries and he tries hard, but he cannot bring himself to look again. His breath comes out as though his lungs are trembling and then Gaara realizes that his whole _body_ is trembling. 

Gaara thinks back to Konohagakure, thinks back to when he once faced a power so big and so vast and so unnameable that he could only stare up at it with awe in his breath and reverence in his footsteps. 

He thinks of the protection that Uzumaki Naruto had so willingly given to the village that had spit on him once. He thinks of the unconditional love that Uzumaki Naruto has laid bare for those who have earned it. It is set out on a platter for him and for Sasuke and for Sakura and for Rock Lee and for Kakashi-san and for _so many people_ to eat off of, to look at, to pour into their mouths as he would water.

Gaara knows who this woman is. Who this woman, who is shielding him with her sand and is crying _she is crying and she is crying and there are big round drops of sand falling on his head and the sand is in his hair and the sand is in his hair and the sand is in his hair._

 

_x_

 

when my end of days comes to play

 

it shall ask my for my family and i

 

used to think that i would not be able to tell it who they are

 

but now names shine across my chest like his beloved chakra chains

 

in my heart so that nobody can read them off of me

 

the names which have held me at night

 

the names that gave me this hat i am wearing

 

and this veil that brushes the tip of my nose

 

the name that held her hands up in front of me so that i

 

would not have to come over so early

 

_x_

 

your

 

mother

 

loved

 

_you_

 

_x_

 

His mother loved him.

Gaara’s chest is rising and falling rapidly, shallowly. Temari stares up, too, and so does Kankurō, because she is _their_ mother too. The mother that they had been missing for some time now.

Temari is twenty-one, just barely reaching the cusp of her prime. She is strong beyond comparison for miles in every direction and she has never needed anyone to hold her up because she would rather ensure the happiness of her village. She is the Kazekage in the shadows and the people have come to love her even more than they already did.

Temari was hailed as a sunshine child when she was born. She loved her mother fiercely. 

Kankurō is nineteen. He guards Gaara like a lion guards his pride, and Gaara _is_ one of the things that makes him most proud. Temari is the other. His love for his siblings runs deeper than even the face paint which he so carefully applies every day, and everybody in the village smiles when they see him coming.

From the moment he was born people foretold that Kankurō would be a puppet-master. His love for his mother was quiet and presented itself in the form of small but well-thought-out gifts. 

Gaara has just turned eighteen. He is fiercely protective of the whole village and he wonders every day why they love him after the person he has been. He, however, loves them without reserve. He loves a great deal of people because his emptiness (which had presided over all of the parts of Gaara’s heart that were not filled with anger) had been replaced with deep, warm love. Sunagakure has ensconced him in her arms and provided for him the love he should have had from the very start. 

When Shukaku was sealed into him, the people feared him greatly. He would always love his mother with the same heat that distorted the roads around his home village. It was wavering and watery and made him lose sight of the real world. 

So the three sand siblings stare up at their mother now. The tears of longing that have waited for so long to come out have loosened and dissolved the glue that had bound Gaara’s eyelids.

 

_x_

 

mother,

 

temari says.

 

when will i grow up to be a strong kunoichi like you

 

temari,

 

mother says.

 

let me be strong for you right now

 

mother,

 

kankurō pleads.

 

please let me go and see father

 

kankurō,

 

mother says.

 

he is busy but he will make time for you later

 

gaara cries upon his birth and

 

gaara,

 

mother says.

 

remember me and remember how i will always protect you

 

_x_

 

“Mother?”

Rasa looks at him sadly. 

His father tells him about family.

Gaara does not have it in him to be angry, so he sits down on his sand and he sees the shapes of his siblings next to him and he cries some more because he wants to do nothing _but._

The sunshine child calls his name and the puppet-master kneels down next to him. 

He feels their fire shining down on him and it is warm.

Gaara knows that his father can see them.

His mother’s pale golden eyes stare down at the three benevolently. She whispers to them and lets them taste her chakra and it is as sweet as anything Gaara has ever tasted.

Karura tells them about family and it is warmer than Rasa’s tale.

Gaara wants to believe that he has taken after his mother; Temari and Kankurō certainly have.

 

_x_

 

when all is at its end

 

and my wits have met their match

 

i follow in my own footsteps

 

_x_

 

A week after it happens, Gaara sits awake in his bed. The hat is perched precariously on his nightstand, but if it falls he will catch it in time.

Temari and Kankurō are in the next room, so he does not worry. Instead he thinks and remembers and cries again because he misses the safety of his mother’s arms.

All in due time, my beloved youngest son, she had told him in the desert. All in due time, and I will see you again.

(So go slowly, and do not rush.)

**Author's Note:**

> insert witty authors note here


End file.
